60s UNDERGROUND: JOHN SINCLAIR

This post, like the above, is a chance to celebrate the past achievements and still ongoing activities of one of the most important figures of the 60s Underground in the US – Mr John Sinclair. Respect.

If you want to get the heads-up on Sinclair’s life and times, check Wikipedia but also get hold of this DVD – essential viewing.

This really is a labour of love. Directed by Steve Gebhardt, edited by Tom Hayes and produced with JS’s full cooperation, this fab 87-min film was begun in 1991 and completed in 2007. Replete with original interviews and fabulous footage of live shows, it brilliantly captures John’s extraordinary life and the full range of his considerable achievements.

The following from the film’s official website: www.20tolife.com

 

John Sinclair is a real American character. Poet, performing artist and bandleader, music journalist, radio broadcaster, record producer, educator and archivist, Sinclair first emerged out of his small-town Michigan background to forge a legendary course through the 1960s as a cultural activist, founder of the Detroit Artists Workshop, manager of the MC-5, and Chairman of the White Panther Party.
An early victim of the War on Drugs who faced 20 years to life in prison for giving two joints to an undercover policewoman, Sinclair mounted an historic challenge to the constitutionality of Michigan’s marijuana laws and served 29 months of a 9-1/2-to-10-year sentence before his legal victory on appeal changed the law for good.

The long campaign waged by Sinclair and his supporters in the courts, the legislature, the media and the streets culminated in a massive John Sinclair Freedom Rally headlined by John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, Phil Ochs, Allen Ginsberg and Bobby Seale that resulted in Sinclair’s release from prison on December 13, 1971—just three days after the event.
For the next 10 years Sinclair persevered as a community organizer and cultural activist, producing the legendary Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festivals, writing for the underground press, founding the Detroit Jazz Center, developing and directing a wide range of projects for community arts organizations.

The film also includes footage of his radio work in New Orleans and footage from Amsterdam, which is now his home base.

‘It’s All Good: A John Sinclair Reader’  [HeadPress] is a fantastic anthology of poems, articles, interviews and memoirs. ‘Detroit Life’ is one of many CDs available   of his poetic performances with a variety    of musicians, in this case the Motor City Blues Scholars'.

This is one of my favourite pics – the night I first met John (7th August 2009) with my old Worthing mate Ian Grant (right) in the garden of the Con Club in Lewes, on a memorable night when John performed with The Dirty Strangers. Full story of the night in this Previous Post

 

[Left: Cover of CB of MC5’s live appearance at Phun City. Available from Amazon and various other outlets.]

We had known about John Sinclair since were teenagers, when we were running the local Arts Lab – the Worthing Workshop. A whole crowd of us lived in the woods for a week, helping set up the site and stage for the now-legendary 1970 Phun City festival which Mick Farren and IT were organising (it all connects). That is where we saw the first ever live performance in Britain by the MC5 – a transformational experience. [More details of Phun City, with original photos and memorabilia in Previous Post: ARCHIVE/ROCK FESTIVALS 1969-1972 ]

FROM THE GENERALIST ARCHIVE

Clipping from the Berkely Barb [28th April 1972]

Sample copy sent to Frendz in London,  of Fifth Estate, [Sept 5-11 1974] the Detroit underground/ anarchist newspaper which is still being published. John Sinclair was the paper’s first Music Editor in the mid-1960s.

Now published as ‘an anti-authoritarian magazine of ideas and action’ www.fifthestate.org

LEWES BONFIRE NIGHT 2012: OUT WITH THE CAMERA

 

ARCHAEOLOGY: NEW MAYAN CALENDAR DISCOVERIES/END OF WORLD POSTPONED

Source: ‘Re-cycled Mayan calendar nonsense’ in Bad Astronomy blog/Discover magazine

Prince exhorted us to party like it’s 1999 and now preparations are underway all over the globe to celebrate the End of the World on December 21st (some say 23rd). According to popular belief, this particular date is when the calendars constructed by the ancient Mayan culture ran out.  THE GENERALIST hates to rain on your parade but, like the Millennium Bug, this particular viral message lacks one essential ingredient – the truth.

2012 is an important year for the Mayan Calendars but for an entirely different reason – the publication of the details of a major archaeological discovery that is transforming and broadening our understanding of these calendars. It is leading us to a completely new interpretation of what this year’s end really signifies. Its a fascinating story which, in brief, I will try and do justice to.

The Mayan civilisation dominated Central America for nearly 1,000 years before collapsing due to the effects of deforestation. They left behind the ruins of a remarkable and ornate civilisation which has fascinated archaeologists and captured the Western imagination. Progressive expeditions have revealed many of the Mayan secrets but new discoveries are still being made.

Our story begins in 2010 when a team under the leadership of the Boston University archaeologist William Saturno, began excavating the Mayan city of Xultún in Guatemala known since 1915, never before properly examined but it had been targeted by looters.

This worked to the excavation team’s advantage when, early in the dig, one of Saturno’s undergraduate students, Max Chamberlain, discovered a piece of a painted wall exposed by the illegal diggers. This led them to uncover the remains of a 1200-year-old residential building, which they believe was a scribe’s workspace. It has three intact room walls on which are the oldest known Mayan painting of an elaborately attired Mayan king, alongside painted and inscribed astronomical tables and texts.

Dresden Codex detail. Source: http://www.jqjacobs.net/mesoamerica/chichen.html

 

These predate the previously oldest-known Mayan calendars   - preserved in books with pages made of bark, known as the Mayan codices - by at least 500 years.

One  table shows a 784-day cycle of the moon’s phases. A second, a table spanning 7,000 years, which shows how long it takes for Mars and Venus to cross the sky and come back again. This calendar goes much further into the future than 2012.

This discovery confirms that the Mayans, like many ancient cultures, used naked-eye astronomy to calculate the paths of the planets. The Mayans used these calendars to harmonise their key ceremonial events with significant planetary cycles.

So here we get to the real meaning of 2012 in the Mayan calendar. According to Mayan expert Marc Zender, the Mayan calendar does start a new “long cycle” in 2012 but this is not the end. Zender compares it to the odometer in car – when it reaches 99,999 miles it rolls over to a line of zeroes and just carries on 7,000 years into the future. So its not the end of everything but the beginning of a new cycle, a time of renewal, not death.

Sources: ‘Mayan discovery shows world won’t end this year after all’ by Brian Vastag. [Seattle Times/10 May 2012)

‘Looting Leads Archaeologists to Oldest Known Mayan Calendar’ by Heather Pringle [Science/10 May 2012]

See also: Christian Science Monitor report with video

CHARLES BUKOWSKI: POET OF THE STREETS

 

Left: ‘Charles Bukowski’ by David Stephen Calonne [Reaktion Books]. Right: Wonderful Robert Crumb drawing of Bukowski at work.

 Bukowski is someone I’ve known about since the 1970s, having read his ‘Dirty Old Man’ columns in the New Orleans-based underground newspaper ‘Nola Express’. Have also read his great novels and some of his poetry but this is the first time I’ve read his life story, which is remarkable. There are already at least five other biographies on the market which I haven’t read so am not in a position to compare and contrast. Calonne’s book is part of a series entitled ‘Critical Lives’ so it blends the biographical material with a literary analysis of his writings -  lightly done and generally insightful. The book as a whole moves at a brisk pace and  is very readable. Full of fascinating detail and tantalising references it has taught me a lot about this remarkable literary outsider.

He was born Heinrich Karl Bukowski in Andernach, Germany, on August 16th, 1920. His father was of German extraction but born in Pasadena, California. During WWI, he was a GI and was stationed in Germany where he met seamstress Katharina Fett. The family returned to the States when Bukowski was two. He would not return to the country until 1978 but Calonne points out the strong influence German culture had on his work.

Bukowski’s father was a brute and his childhood, both at home and at school, was a nightmare. He says he was ‘held in slavery’ in a ‘house of horrors’. In his struggle to undo the damage and childhood abuse, he became distant, alienated and anti-authoritarian. Calonne makes an interesting parallel with William Burroughs ‘a writer with whom he felt himself to have nothing in common.’

Bukowski was hanging out on the streets from adolescence and it was at this time he discovered alcohol which he greeted as a salvation andwith which. says Calonne, he began a ‘life-long love affair’ in his struggle to overcome the damage to his spiritual and mental well-being.

He also discovered the magic of literature. His great hero was John Fante who he considered his Master. Fante’s world of cheap boarding houses, torrid and violent love affairs and low-life drinking haunts became his own. He also loved the Armenian  writer William Saroyan, Turgenev, Gorky, Celine and Kafka. His other passion was classical music which he listened to throughout his life, his favourite composer being Sibelius.

He started work in 1939 and also enrolled at the Los Angeles City College where he studied journalism and English; he left two years later without taking a degree. To pay for this, he scrubbed trains by day and gambled and drank at night with the aircraft workers and pimps. It is not clear what effect this period had on his writing or exactly what he was writing at this point but it seems the pattern of his life was already set.

A bear of a man, face scarred by acne, he affected a tough guy persona, a sarcastic and roughhouse demeanour, speckled with courtly charm and a ribald sense of humour.In time he would became Charles not Henry Bukowski and begin a lifetime of autobiographical writing, much of it featuring his fictional alter ego Chinaski.

He was to spend the rest of his life in Los Angeles but before that came an extraordinary period, from 1942-1947, when he set off on his wunderjahre, criss-crossing America, barely surviving through a string of blue-collar low-paid jobs, often starving. He needed, it seems, to create distance from his childhood traumas. His experiences were to provide a wealth of material for his writings.

Calonne  says ‘it is difficult to determine Bukowski’s whereabouts during the 1940s: the primary evidence is his own memory, which was not always reliable.’ He points out that his journey could not be more different than Jack Kerouac’s. Bukowski did not go on the road for spiritual illumination, says Calonne, ‘he had nowhere to go so he went everywhere.’

Yet somehow he survived and began a writing life that was to lead him to fame and prosperity. His first story was published in 1944 – the same year he got arrested by the FBI for draft dodging - in ‘Story’, at that time one of the premier literary magazines in America. 

Between 1946 and 1956 he began obsessively writing, largely at night listening to classical music, fuelled by alcohol. His work was never confined to one form. Over the next 40 years he was to produce poems, stories, essays, novels, book reviews and journalism – a remarkable ouevre that continues to entertain and inspire.

The market for his writings were the literally hundreds of small magazines, chapbooks, broadsides and underground newspapers that were published during this period and later, mainly produced on mimeograph machines. Before reading Calonne’s book I was completely unaware of this phenomenon, an interesting precursor to the Underground Press movement of the 6o’s and 70’s.

It was a world perfect for Bukowski’s purposes and he wrote copiously for numerous outlets, earning the soubriquet ‘King of the Littles.’ His voluminous and lengthy correspondence with them provides a wonderful window into this lost world.

Some idea of his productivity is the fact that, between 1960 and 1965 he produced seven volumes of poetry. It was during this period that he also hooked up with John Martin of the publishing company Black Sparrow, who became the central figure in Bukowski’s professional writing life and in his rise to world fame.

It was Martin who, in 1970, suggested to Bukowski that he write a novel. Bukowski had for many years worked at the US Post Office to supplement his writing income and this provided him with his subject. He wrote the book in 19 days and its one of his greatest works.

Bukowski died in 1994. He had survived a lifetime of alcoholic abuse, numerous torrid and violent love affairs, and a lifestyle and living conditions that would have killed a weaker man. He lived to see his work celebrated,eulogised and published internationally. In the last part of his life, he also found comfort and love. Like Philip K. Dick and William Burroughs, his work continues to exert a profound influence on much of modern culture.

Bukowski never aligned himself with the Beat writers. Calonne say he was a ‘heroic individualist’ who was ‘wary of their vanity and posturing’. Yet they admired him and one of their number, poet Gary Snyder, memorably said of him that he ‘never shies away from the fact that human beings possess bodies.’ A blue-collar poet of the streets, Bukowski’s gave voice to the underprivileged and the dispossessed, to the underbelly of America. His work has special and continued relevance in these benighted times.

TREE DISEASES: ASH TREE ALERT

The ash tree is the fourth most common tree in Britain.Source: Woodland Trust

UPDATE: THE NEWS GETS WORSE. Read John Vidal’s piece in The Guardian  today (2 Nov 2012)

As of today, the British government has at last taken action to ban imports of ash trees and their movement around the country to try and prevent the fungal disease which has killed millions of ash trees in Denmark.

The official story is that the fungal disease was first discovered in a commercial nursery in Buckinghamshire last Feb but that ministers weren’t informed until April. It was first discovered in the wild in June. 

The Generalist has been told that the information first went public in a story in Horticulture Week in June and was picked up by the Daily Mail, which was the first time that FERA and the Forestry Commission made public statements.

An hour ago The Guardian  published a story by John Vidal that the government was warned three years ago by the Horticultural Trades Association who said action should be taken to prevent its spread to the UK.

Some 50,000 ash trees have already been burnt and the disease has been found in two woods in East Anglia. One thousand other sites are being investigated for signs of the disease.

Potentially as damaging as Dutch Elm Disease.

See: The Telegraph story

See Previous Post: TREE DISEASES ROUND-UP

THE FUTURE OF THE GUITAR

What sort of future does the guitar have in modern music? This was touched on in the previous post about the decline and changing nature of the music business but also triggered by this article in the New York Times  about Fender Musical Instruments’ struggle to survive. THE GENERALIST set out to explore this question and made some interesting discoveries along the way.

 BALI GUITARS

This Bali wood-worker Wayan Tuges was approached by Montreal businessman and musician Danny Forfender who was looking for a craftsman to produce ornate guitars in Bali – an instrument that had never been part of the Balinese music tradition. The result is that Tuges now has a worldwide collector’s market for his custom-made guitars, the most expensive of which sell for almost $9,000 dollars. See: Full story and slideshow on the Wall Street Journal site.

 

STEAMPUNKED GUITARS

(image credit:deviant art,r3v II cls,deviant art,deviant art)

See: Great article and visual round-up in ‘Sexy As Sin’ on WebURbanist

 

 

Ebony has always been an important tone wood in the making of guitars and other instruments. Bob Taylor, co-founder of Taylor Guitars explains that supplies of ebony have been exhausted and the only country left with a substantial ebony forest is Cameroon. So concerned was he about the situation that he bought Cameroon’s biggest ebony mill and now effectively runs the ebony business in the country. Its a remarkable story. Bob’s presentation is a bit folksy but hats off to the man.

See also: ‘Taylor Guitars Buys Ebony Mill’ in Los Angeles Times (2012)

 

SUPER GUITARS: 11 AXES OF THE FUTURE:

 

Moog E1 (£2899)

‘In an industry obsessed with the design and tonal benchmarks set by the big guns in the 1950s and 1960s, some of the futuristic instruments we've selected have had a tough time finding acceptance. But with contemporary guitar heroes like Muse’s Matt Bellamy latching on to the sonic potential of onboard effects, will a day come when the Fender Stratocaster and Gibson Les Paul are as outmoded as the Model-T Ford.’

See: Tom Porter on Music Rader (October 2010). Complete slideshow.

 

 

ATOM 3 printed guitar: See: OD Guitars

3-D Guitars; The Way of the Future

‘In the competitive market place that is electric guitars you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who plays guitar who hasn’t heard the names Fender or Gibson. They are both big name American guitar manufacturers who hold a strong footprint on the market share worldwide. But one man based in Auckland, New Zealand believes he has the formula to perhaps not compete for market share on the same scale with those two giants but to at the very least be a point of difference and stand out from the crowd.

‘Meet Olaf Diegel, Olaf is a University professor of Mechatronics at Massey University and has been delving into the world of 3D printing. This process is essentially taking a 3D computer model of a product then slicing it into very thin pieces. The printing machine then prints and layers each piece one on top of the other until the product is finished. Mr Diegel who also has a passion for music and has played in many rock bands over the years …came up with an idea to manufacture 3D guitar bodies and start his own business.’

See: Full story by Peter Freeman on Ultimate Guitar (2012)

See also: You Rawk! 3D Rapid Prototyping Acoustic Instruments of the Future’ by Josh Mings on SolidSmack

 

The Guitar of the Future

CNET Asia posted photos of this purely conceptual Hyper Touch Guitar. This multitouch is a mock up from Italian product designer Max Battaglia and is not a reality - yet. I personally am fascinated by synth guitars, but am in no rush to replace good old analog strings anytime soon. Source: Shred That Axe

 

OPINIONS & DEBATE

‘Is Guitar Music on the Way Out’: Are guitars becoming a thing of the past as dance and rap acts become more popular? Guardian readers share their thoughts. (2012)

 

‘Music Continues to Evolve With the Help of New Technology’ by Duncan McHenry (Oct 2012) on kansas.com

‘The electric guitar, of course, which has been a leading part of popular music since the ‘50s. The innovation of putting transducer pickups on a piece of wood to capture electronic sound is an early example of modern technology’s constantly evolving role in musical creation.

‘New technology will always influence the sound of pop music for the same reason that I’m typing this article on a MacBook instead of a typewriter. But the demand for talented musicians isn’t going away anytime soon. Video may have killed the radio star, but as Jimi Hendrix said: “That’s all right, I still got my guitar.”

 

‘Label boss is ‘concerned’ over future of guitar music’ BBC Newsbeat (2012)

Concerns have been raised about the future of guitar music with one of the UK's top record company bosses saying labels are "scared" to sign new bands. Jim Chancellor, managing director of Fiction Records, says his competitors are taking on less rock music "because not much of it is succeeding".He admitted guitar music needed a "shot in the arm" and that opportunities to promote bands in the media are limited. Chancellor has signed bands including Snow Patrol, Elbow and White Lies.

THE CHANGING FACE OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY (1980-2010)

The remarkable transformation of the music industry from 1980-2010  is brilliantly illustrated in a 30-sec animated graphic sequence of pie charts. You can examine each frame individually. Based on US data. Dramatic and thought-provoking.

See: Digital Music News

 

Here’s another way of looking at it. Shows the recorded music industry peaked in 2000.

The image comes from a report discussing the transition of literature from books to digital format (pdf).

I found this in a great post on the the FGV Guitar blog which investigates whether declining music sales are affecting the guitar. Much of popular music features few recognisable guitar parts.

SILVER SCREEN: THE ARTIST IS PRESENT/MARINA ABRAMOVIC

 

‘The Artist Is Present’ is a remarkable and powerful art documentary by Matthew Aker about Marina Abramović, described in the film as the godmother of Performance Art.

It centres on the eponymous event she staged at MOMA in New York when, from March 14th to May 31st 2010, eight hours a day, she sat in a gallery in front of a table with an empty chair facing her on the other side.  A total of 736 hours.

One by one, members of the public came and sat in the empty chair for as long as they wished and stared into her eyes. No conversation or physical contact was allowed. Later in the show, the table was removed and so there was no physical barrier between her and the sitter.

Marina, born in Belgrade in 1946, was brought up  by freedom fighter parents. It was a tough regime – her mother rarely showed her any affection – and the steely qualities that were instilled in her somehow carried her through this most gruelling experience of her artistic life.

It’s all about The Gaze – and the film gives us a sense of how powerful that is. Person after person have tears running down their cheeks. The intensity and compassion in those eyes are mesmerising – as if she is giving you her love but also staring deep into your soul and your secrets.

Interweaved with this remarkable performance is the fascinating story of her life and times and her ground-breaking series of performance art pieces, most of them very physical and highly controversial. The show at MOMA reprised her entire oeuvre and five of her previous pieces were restaged using young performers that we see Marina training at an artistic boot camp.

For many years she had a star-struck partnership with a Dutchman Ulay Laysiepen – their last piece together was when they walked the Great Wall of China from opposite ends, meeting in the middle. Having not seen each other for many years, the film shows us their touching reunion.

There is a tendency to consider Performance Art as a bit flaky perhaps. ‘The Artist Is Present’ demonstrates that, in the right hands, it has a power and majesty that deserves respect. This film may not change your life but it will fill your mind and soul with inspiration and searching questions.

 

A lecture for women only the South Bank Centre in London as part of Antony Hegarty’s Meltdown Festival in August 2012. Abramovic is currently developing the Institute of Long Durational Performing Arts in Hudson NY.

Guardian interview 2010

AUTUMN LEAVES

 

Rediscovering the joys of wandering round with a camera and really looking at things.

CULT BOOKS: ROBERT COOVER

Top: First edition of ‘Pricksongs & Descants’ [Jonathan Cape. 1971] Cover: Detail from The Seven Deadly Sins’ by Hieronymous Bosch. Author photo: Tony Keeler.Below: First edition of ‘Gerald’s Party’ [ Heinemann. 1986]. Cover: Barbara Nessim. Inscribed to me: ‘For John May, Heavy drinker. welcome guest.’

This post and the one following are about two writers I interviewed way back when, who have swum back into my consciousness through discovering and reading copies of their more recent work and then returning back to the original books which turned me on to their work in the first place. If that makes sense.

I remember exactly where I was when this copy of ‘Pricksongs & Descants’ came into my possession. It was in the box office of a huge venue in Seven Sisters Road in London where the underground press were staging regular gigs with bands like the Pink Fairies and Hawkwind. I had been put on the door because I didn’t know anybody and thus was less likely to let anyone in for free. Joy Farren gave it to me – my first ever review copy – for me to write about it for International Times’. I was 21. A collection of short fictional pieces. I thought is was magical. On the dusk jacket are two Coover quotes about his writing:

‘And it is above all the need for new modes of perception and fictional forms able to encompass them that I, barber’s basin on my head, address these stories.’

‘The novelist uses familiar mystic or historical forms and to conduct the reader to the real, away from mystification to clarification, away from magic to maturity, away from mystery to revelation.’

In Feb 2009, the New Yorker published a long piece by Louis Menand entitled ‘Saved From Drowning’ about ‘Hiding Man’, Tracy Daugherty’s biography of the writer Donald Barthelme. It begins:

‘n the spring of 1983, Donald Bar­thelme invited about twenty people to dinner at a restaurant in SoHo. The guest list included Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, William Gaddis, Robert Coover, John Hawkes, William Gass, Kurt Vonnegut, Walter Abish, and Susan Sontag. All of them turned up ex­cept Pynchon, who was out of the state and sent his regrets, and the writers made short speeches about their work and toasted their friendship. The affair became known as the Postmodernists Dinner.

‘As with many occasions organized to celebrate accomplishment, the mood was valedictory. In the nineteen-sixties, most of those writers had been turning the world of American fiction on its head; in the nineteen-eighties, they were the subjects of doctoral disserta­tions. They had become aldermen of the towns they once set out to burn down. They had also fallen out of step. The action in American fiction after 1975 no longer involved experimental-ism and mixed media; it involved mini­malism and a kind of straightforward realism that many of the people in the room probably thought they had left for dead long before. ‘

One year after this dinner, Robert Coover’s book ‘Gerald’s Party’ was published in the UK  - his first major novel since the 1970s - and I was fortunate indeed to have a chance to interview him – on April 28th 1986, at his agents house in Ladbroke Grove. The next day I was 36. As often happens, the interview was never published but I still have the cassette tape – now of some historical value. ‘The Observer’ review of the book echoed Menand’s comments above:

‘Robert Coover’s new novel displays all the manic energy, the black and bizarre humour that made his name back in the Sixties. But his determinedly outrageous bad taste now seems rather strident, even a little dated.’

In 2009, there was a wonderful feature in The Guardian Review by Harif Kunzru entitled ‘Robert Coover: A Life in Writing’ [read it in full here] which rightly celebrates Coover’s achievements.

‘Coover, along with such writers as Thomas Pynchon, William Gass, Donald Barthelme and John Barth, broke open the carapace of postwar American realism to reveal a fantastical funhouse of narrative possibilities. His relentless experimentalism, combined with a sly and often bawdy humour, have made him a writer's writer, a hero to those who feel smothered by the marshmallowy welter of pseudo-literary romance that dominates contemporary fiction. Refreshingly unconcerned with psychology, sympathy, redemption, epiphanies and conventional narrative construction (or rather, concerned with undoing these things), he is relatively unknown in Britain, where three of his books (Pricksongs & Descants, Gerald's Party and Briar Rose & Spanking the Maid) have recently been released as Penguin Modern Classics.’

On how the wheel of literary fortune turns. To get a taste of the master at work, try ‘Noir’ published by Overlook Duckworth in 2011. Steeped in the conventions of the genre, Coover does what he does best – plays and subverts it, pays homage but also takes the piss. Its a little gem which will astonish, amuse and enlighten you as to the possibilities of writing. There are no rules. T.C. Boyle, no slouch himself, has the cover quote: ‘Our foremost verbal wizard, our laughter in the dark.’  As I write this post, I am now 62.                                                                                                        

Robert Coover is now 80 and is on Facebook. I have sent him a copy of this post. You can read more about him here:

Wikipedia

www.robertcoover.com

Wonderful readings by Coover (including ‘Noir’  and ‘The New Thing’

Interview by Jonathan Derbyshire in the New Statesmen (2011)

You helped found the Electronic Literature Organisation. When did you first become interested in the literary possibilities opened up by digital technology?
In the late 1980s. It just seemed obvious to me that the world was going to go digital. Everything about it made it seem inevitable, and if that was true then I thought my [creative writing] students should be aware of it and know how to live inside this new world.

Is "electronic literature" a threat to books?
It won't displace books, though I don't think it's good for books. I think it's good for literary art of another kind. And the literature produced may be far more compelling and popular than print culture currently is.

CULT BOOKS: DENIS JOHNSON

 

Original 1st Edition of ‘Angels’ Cover illustration: Donald McPherson. Photograph: Lucinda Johnson. Signed: w/thanks for your interest'.’

I met Denis Johnson on 14th March 1984, one month after I’d interviewed Kathy Acker.  At that time Johnson would have been 25 and had written three books of poetry. ‘Angels’ was his first novel , published in the UK by Chatto & Windus. Denis was in town to do press and I met him at some smart service flat in Central London. I wish I could say I remember all the details (I don’t) but fortunately I do have the original cassette tape as a perfect aide-mémoire. I don’t think the interview was ever published.

‘Angels’ starts on a Greyhound bus out of Oakland. Jamie has left her husband with Miranda and Baby Ellen. She falls into conversation with Bill Houston. Here’s one of Jamie’s first observations of Bill:

‘When he packed his wraparound sunglasses back onto the bridge of his nose with his thumb, his shirtsleeves rose with the movement to reveal a tattoo on his triceps of a single naked breast cupped in two disembodied hands. ”Let me guess. I bet your name is Louise.”

That’s where the trouble starts and it gets darker from then on. This is a raw story with real smart dialogue, told with elegance and  precision. A journey into the bleak side. It impressed me at the time and on the reread.

 I picked up a second-hand  uncorrected proof copy of Johnson’s novel ‘Train Dreams’  [first published in 2002 and republished by Granta Books 2012] and read it straight through in a few hours. At 110pp its a novella that’s perfectly shaped and weighted. We see the history of 20th century America through the life of one man, Robert Grainier, a day labourer in the pioneering times of the West. Its a joy.

So what happened after ‘Angels’?  Johnson wrote eight other novels including ‘Tree of Smoke’ which won the National Book Award, more poetry books and one work of nonfiction: ‘Safe: Reports from the Edge of America & Beyond’.

A short story collection ‘Jesus’Son’  was made into a movie and is the book that made his name.

According to an article in New York magazine: ‘Denis Johnson's acclaimed 1992 collection of short stories about a drug-demented American grifter…earned him cult status as the quintessential "writer's writer," spiritual heir to William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Dylan Thomas -- and inspiration to younger writers like Dave Eggers, Junot Diaz, and George Saunders.’

Described by them as ‘famously reclusive’, he has also written several plays and is a Resident Playwright for the Campo Santo theatre company in San Francisco.’ [More details on Wikipedia]

TREE DISEASES: ROUND-UP

Photo: John May

Since my last post http://hqinfo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/ tree-news-sudden-oak-death.html in July this year, there have been a number of significant developments. This post is a round-up of issues and stories.

 

UK ACTION PLAN [UPDATE]

On 18th October 2011, the Government launched the Tree Health and Plant Biosecurity Action Plan which brings together DEFRA, the Forestry Commission, Forest Research, FERA and the Devolved Administrations to ‘set out a UK-wide integrated approach towards strengthening strategy for dealing with serious tree pests and diseases. The June 2012 Progress Report on the plan is available here. They are due to publish a further Progress Report before year end and have written to DEFRA for details. [DEFRA confirmed this is likely to be in November]

[Matthew Appleby, Deputy Editor of Horticulture Week was good enough to send me a copy of his article on the Action Plan (Pub. Sept 11th). As well as above, the partnership also includes the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSCR) with other research councils likely to be added. This coalition has been brought together under the Living With Environmental Change Partnership. Several million pounds over the next four years is being committed to the research effort.

 

OAK PROCESSIONARY MOTH

 

The Oak Processionary Moth (Thaumetopoea processionea) is native to central and southern Europe but spread northwards during the late 20thC. It was first recorded in the Netherlands in 1991 since when numbers have soared periodically. It  remains a major problem there and in neighbouring areas of Belgium, where 30,000 moths were recently caught in just one night. In Germany, police have sealed off infested areas and deployed helicopters fitted with sprayers to drench tree canopies with insecticide.

OPM arrived in Britain from Europe on imported trees in 2006 and has been defoliating trees in five west London boroughs: Ealing, Brent, Hounslow, Richmond-upon-Thames and Hammersmith and Fulham.

According to Amateur Gardening: ‘The Government has admitted that attempts to eradicate oak processionary moth (OPM) from streets, parks and gardens in London have failed. It has now spread as far afield as Reading and Sheffield.’

It is the caterpillars not only cause serious defoliation in  oak trees, their principal host, but are also a human health hazard. ‘Each 20-25mm bug is covered with 62,000 toxic hairs. The hairs easily penetrate clothes, causing skin irritation for up to a month.Other symptoms include vomiting, dizziness and fever.’ In France, there are reports of people being blinded. The caterpillar hairs remain toxic for up to five years and can contaminate nearby grass, soil and crops. Trees recover and leaf the following year.

Methods for controlling OPM caterpillars are: spraying trees with the controversial insecticide deltamethrin; using hair spray to glue the caterpillars together and then burning them with a blowtorch, using giant vacuum cleaners to hoover them up and then burning them in on-site incinerators; spraying trees with nematodes, a natural parasite.

Source: Amateur Gardening.

Forest Research provide advice and help. You must not attempt to handle the larvae caterpillars yourself, or disturb their nests.

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ASH DIE-BACK

Close up of the leaves and “keys” (fruit) of the common Ash.    Source: Wikipedia

Ash die-back is caused by a Hymenoscyphus pseudoalbidus), an anamorph ( an asexual reproductive stage) of the fungus Chalara fraxinea. This infects the tree’s leaf-stalks. When the leaves die and fall, they infect other trees. The fungus has destroyed 90% of Denmark’s ash trees and is causing serious problems in Germany, Poland, Norway, Sweden and Austria. Many European countries have been urging Britain to ban imports of ash saplings – an interim ban may come into force in November – but many feel its too late. According to Tracy McVeigh in The Observer:

‘In February, the fungus was found in a batch of trees sent from a Dutch nursery to Buckinghamshire. Between June and September it was confirmed in nurseries in Yorkshire, Surrey and Cambridgeshire, at a Forestry Commission Scotland woodland near Kilmacolm, and in ash trees planted in a Leicester car park. Conservationists hope it has not reached the 80 million ash trees in the wider British countryside, outside of new planting.

The UK and Ireland may well be, within the next 10 years, the only remaining places in Europe with ash. ‘

Full story here: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/07/disease-killing-denmarks-ash-trees

There’s an exceptionally good post on this topic which explains a great deal more about this fungus, its life-cycle and the damage it causes. See: ‘Leaves, keys and Fungi’ on the Skeptical Squirrel blog.

 

HORSE CHESTNUT: BLEEDING CANKER

 

Bleeding canker on horse-chestnut tree. Map shows percentage of horse chestnut trees surveyed in 2007 with symptoms of bleeding canker. Source: Forestry Research

‘Horse Chestnuts have been prone to infection from pathogens from the genus Phytopthora for several decades, but infection rates which caused ill health remained at a relatively low level. However, for the last few years incidences of ill health in Horse Chestnuts have observed to be increasing at an alarming rate. Scientific research carried out on affected trees repeatedly confirmed the presence of a pathovar known as ‘Pseudomonas syringae pv aesculi’.

See full article: Farming Life [18th Oct 2012}

According to a 2007 report by Ian  Monger on the Arboricultural Information Exchange site:

‘In the UK the disease is now very widespread and the Forestry Commission estimate that up to 50,000 trees are affected, with probably a few thousand already felled.

The disease affects almost all ages of tree, from young trees with a DBH of only 10cm to mature specimen trees, including many highly visible trees in parks, gardens and avenues. The disease has struck the prominent double avenue of horse chestnuts leading to the prehistoric Avebury stone circle.

Research has shown about 50% of the horse chestnuts studied in Hampshire to be affected with bleeding canker (Straw and Green, unpublished data), with a higher proportion in amenity situations than in woodlands. Slightly more red horse chestnuts (A. x carnea) were affected than the white A. hippocastanum.’

[Unable to find any more recent statistics]